Facebook accelerates video push with acquisition of QuickFire

Social network Facebook is making the most of its current video victory lap by acquiring a video compression company in the US called QuickFire Networks.

Facebook reported yesterday that in just one year the number of video posts per person has increased by 75pc worldwide and 94pc in the US, Facebook has reported. The social network now rivals YouTube as the go-to place to discover video.

Globally, Facebook says the amount of video from people and brands in News Feed has increased 3.6x year-over-year.

Since June last year Facebook says that it has averaged more than 1bn video views every day.

Acquiring Quickfire, which can quickly convert video formats and allow them to be downloaded with the minimum of bandwidth, will enable Facebook to vastly improve the video user experience for its 1.3bn users.

“QuickFire Networks was founded on the premise that the current network infrastructure is not sufficient to support the massive consumption of video that’s happening online without compromising on video quality,” CEO Craig Y. Lee said.

“Over the past few years, the team has worked hard to meet the demanding needs of content creators around the world. Ultimately our goal has always been to provide a premium quality, immediate, bandwidth-friendly video experience to consumers.”

Key members of QuickFire will join Facebook and the company will begin winding down its business operations.